02 · OPEN CONTENT
Press OPEN FILE or drop videos / images anywhere in the window — several at once if you like. They line up as slots in the clip at the left edge; click a slot or press its number to switch. Files play straight from your disk — nothing is uploaded or copied.
Tap OPEN FILE and pick videos or images on your phone — several at once if you like. They line up in the clip at the top of the screen. Files play straight from your phone — nothing is uploaded or copied.
The player reads a file by its name first. A name that starts with a prefix and then _ or - says what the file is, whatever its picture: FD_, DM_, DOME_ or FULLDOME_ a fulldome master (the dome opens at 45°), PL_, PLAN_ or PLANETARIUM_ a planetarium master (90°), FT_, FLY_ or FLYING_ a flying-theater master (0°), SRD_ an SRD master, VR_, 360_, EQ_ or P_ a 360 / VR file — so a flat clip called P_final.mp4 or 360-promo.mp4 is taken for 360, and gets no FLAT and no PIP. With no prefix the shape decides, from the home screen: 2:1 goes to 360, a flat picture (16:9, scope, 4:3) to FULLDOME 180, a square to the dome your own files last played in (FULLDOME 180 at first — a look at a demo does not count), and «srd» elsewhere in the name sends a square or a 2:1 file to SRD 280. Inside a mode OPEN keeps the current mode, with two exceptions: a file named for another mode goes there (SRD_ to SRD 280, FD_, PL_ or FT_ to FULLDOME 180), and a flat picture opened in 360 or SRD goes to FULLDOME 180, the mode that shows it as a frame, as AR DOME does. TILT follows a clip's own angle only when the kind of clip changes; a TILT you set stays through the clips of one kind, and a double-click on the slider or a click on its number brings the clip's own angle back.
Formats: MP4 (H.264 / HEVC), WebM, JPG / PNG. ProRes plays in Safari on Mac only.
STATISTICS — the player sends its makers an anonymous visit report: your browser, device and screen, your language and time zone, the time of the visit, the site or the link you came by (the site only, never its page), whether you came before and whether the player is installed, touch or mouse, a random number that names this visit and lives as long as the tab, whether the UPGRADE screen was all you saw, which modes and demo reels you opened and which tools (VR, AR, fullscreen, help), and how long the player was in sight. What you open yourself never leaves the device — not the file, not its name, not a picture; for it the report holds only a kind, a resolution and a count. Two small marks stay in the browser after you leave, no more: that you were here before, and which link you first came by; while the tab is open it also keeps the visit's number and that link. A browser set to "do not track" sends no report and keeps no marks.
04 · MODES
FULLDOME 180 — classic planetarium dome, square domemaster. Tilt the dome, change FOV.
SRD 280° — Super Reality Dome, you stand inside a real-scale dome. Pick the dome size; the floor grid shows FRONT / BACK / LEFT / RIGHT.
VIDEO 360 / PHOTO 360 — full sphere, 2:1 equirectangular. A floor grid with FRONT / BACK / LEFT / RIGHT keeps your bearings; Bthe floor button in the panel hides it. OFFSET V tips the whole panorama and R rolls it, for footage shot off the level.
AR DOME — the dome over your camera picture, in your room or outside.
DEPTH — in FULLDOME 180 it moves you back from the centre to the last row: under the dome's back edge, never out of it — the figure button is there to see the dome from outside. In a flying theater it runs as far as in a planetarium of the same size; in AR DOME it runs to 10 m, to see the dome standing further off in your room. In the SRD it takes you back from the centre to the back wall, on its own floor; with HUMAN on, the eyes stay on FRONT.
HUMAN — the button beside FOV or V: the view as a person sees it, 90° along the screen's longer side — across on a wide screen, up and down on a tall one — with the FOV slider resting, the eyes turned to the centre — the middle of the fulldome's front, where its seats face, wherever a flat frame or PIP's pair stands; FRONT at eye level in the SRD and 360. Look around freely; the centre button or C, or moving HEIGHT, DEPTH, TILT, DOME or RIM, brings the eyes back to it. A chair in SEAT VIEW opens in HUMAN too. HUMAN is off whenever the player opens: it comes on only when you press it.
DOMECAST — the rail's DOME CAST button in FULLDOME 180, on a computer: the master itself, a 180° fisheye 1K, 2K, 3K or 4K square (1024 to 4096 pixels), or FIT — exactly the height of the screen its window is on, always 1:1 — of whatever is on the dome — a master turned by its OFFSET, a VR file, a flat video with its SCALE, BACK, GLOW and BACKGROUND, converted live. While it is on, the panel keeps lit only what reaches the master — files, playback, FLAT, AMBILIGHT, OFFSET, BACKGROUND; the rest, the view from inside, goes grey until DOMECAST is off. The rim is feathered five pixels inside, as a mask in After Effects. The player shows it as a preview, and a small window of its own opens beside it — while that window is open the player shows no picture, only a word — DOMECAST while the window is small, ON AIR once it is fullscreen on another screen — and the panel, and the master is drawn once, for the window; close the window and the preview comes back. Drag that window to the display that goes to the projector with a fisheye lens, or to the dome server's capture input, and click it. Fullscreen there it is the master pixel for pixel on black, and the bar over the player says ON AIR; a screen smaller than the master gets it fitted to its height, and the bar says which size goes 1:1. It goes out at 60 frames a second at most — a 144 or 240 Hz screen is held to 60, a 50 or 59.94 Hz one sends every frame it draws — and with INFO on the bar shows the frames that really went out. Fullscreen on the player's own screen the window covers the player, and Chrome stops drawing what it cannot see — so the window draws the master itself, and the output goes on; a second screen (extend, not duplicate) keeps the player in view. An HDMI frame is never square: the master sits in its middle and the server takes the square from there. The largest square that goes 1:1 is the output's height — FIT takes it: 1080 on 1080p, 2160 on 4K; 3K and 4K are taller than any HDMI output and get fitted — they are for NDI through a virtual screen. In the window Enter or F makes it fullscreen and O opens files, as in the player. INFO in the bar, or I in the window, is the one switch for the numbers: the frames a second in the bar here, and in the window the frames, the master's size, 1:1 or fitted, the screen and the source — over the preview in the small window, and fullscreen on the black beside the square, never over it. It is off by default, since a fisheye projector throws the sides of its frame onto the dome too. On a computer only: on Android or an iPad the window would open as a tab, and a tab behind draws nothing. For NDI, capture that screen with NDI Tools or OBS. The player may stand covered by the window, or behind another tab: the window goes on drawing the master. If the browser blocks the window, allow pop-ups for the site. While DOMECAST is on, MENU, Esc and BACK leave it alone — STOP ends it — and G, B, V and C change nothing. No grid, rim or labels go out; nothing leaves the computer.
MEASURE — in the figure's view the MEASURE button (the rail's lower row, left of GRID) opens a drawing of the dome as it stands: a side view with the floor, the tilt, the height and the figure to scale, and under it the sizes — tilt, diameter, radius, length, height from the floor to the top, the edge over the floor, the figure and its eyes. Move TILT, DOME, RIM (how high the dome's edge stands over the floor), DEPTH or HEIGHT and the drawing follows; M does the same. Under the sizes, SEATS: the hall from above with its rows and how many people it holds — ARK ESTIMATE, our own count from a dome maker's capacity guide and 105 real halls. Theater chairs in straight rows facing the front, a 1 m ring at the wall left free, aisles as in a cinema (no more than 14 chairs between two); a dome at 85° and up seats on a flat floor, from a little ahead of the middle to the back; a tilted one climbs in steps with the dome, no steeper than 45°, the eyes at the rim's level, so every row sits inside it; below a 45° tilt no rows are counted — no real hall is that steep. Where a dot on the plan is one chair, there are as many dots as the count. Beside the chairs, what the same level floor takes on bean bags or standing; in the SRD the audience stands in its viewing zone round the centre, where the 280° picture reads right — about one person a square metre, room for each to turn round (4 in a 4.5 m sphere, some 85 in 21 m); on the plan each is a star. Real halls of one size differ by about ±20%. Click a chair on the drawing, then VIEW: you sit in it — its row and seat number on screen — and look where the audience looks, at the centre of the dome's front, where its seats face — drag to turn your head, C back to the screen, V a human's view or the whole dome, A the audience in front — with it in, the floor is dark, as in a real hall, and A taking it away brings the floor back — B the floor, in an empty hall only, G the grid, the arrows to the next chair, Esc to stand up.
HEIGHT — how tall the viewer is: 1.70 m by default, 1.00 for a child; the eyes are 10 cm under the top of the head. Seated in a planetarium's chair, set about 1.30 to see from the eyes of the audience. The floor, the last row for DEPTH and the figure follow it. Tap the number for 1.70. In the figure's view with TILT under 15° (a flying theater) a slider at the figure's side lifts it off the floor, up to the dome's edge; a click on its number puts it back.
VR IN THE DOME — open a VR file (2:1, or VR_ in the name) in FULLDOME 180, SRD 280 or AR DOME and it is converted to the dome on the fly: no render, nothing is saved. From the home screen a VR file still opens in VIDEO 360 or PHOTO 360 — switch to a dome mode and it is converted there. In the clip it sits under VR → DOME on the fulldome and VR → SRD on the SRD. OFFSET turns the camera inside the VR sphere, in the numbers of the ARK DomeConvertor script: V is the tilt — where the camera looks, 0° THEATER straight ahead, 45° FULLDOME, 90° ZENITH — H the pan, R the roll. On the SRD the camera looks down at the floor, as in the script, and only H turns.
FLAT IN THE DOME — a flat video or picture (16:9, scope, 4:3 — neither square nor 2:1, and no prefix in the name) opened in FULLDOME 180 or AR DOME stands on the dome as a frame, the way After Effects' VR Plane to Sphere puts it: nothing is rendered. In the clip it sits under FLAT → DOME. The panel gets a second tab, FLAT CONVERSION, beside DOME: everything that lays the frame on the dome is there — PIP, then the FLAT block, the frame's whole geometry, then its light — and DOME keeps the dome and the view. SCALE is the frame's height in degrees, as Scale in After Effects' VR Plane to Sphere — the same number gives the same frame; V and R move the camera as for a VR file — at 45° the frame stands halfway up the front of the dome — and X turns the picture itself towards or away from you, as Source Tilt (X axis) in After Effects: a frame low in a planetarium can face the audience instead of standing at a slant. The light round the frame is the AMBILIGHT block under it. BACK lights the dark round the frame with the same picture, stretched over the whole dome and blurred, as in After Effects; at 0% it stays dark. A PNG with a transparent ground shows it through its holes, as a layer over another does in After Effects. GLOW is Ambilight: a thin light line on the frame's edge and a glow in the colours of the picture's own edge, following the video; at 0% it is off. COLOR paints the glow one colour along its strip — the line stays white; AUTO, at the strip's left end or on a double click, gives the picture's colours back. From the home screen it opens in FULLDOME 180 by itself.
PIP — picture in picture: with a flat file on FULLDOME 180, the PIP button at the top of the panel's FLAT CONVERSION tab puts the picture twice, a pair mirrored about the front. Each copy is the one frame as it stands at +R and at −R: its top toward the dome's centre, its bottom along the edge. The usual handles drive the pair: V takes both down or up the dome, R spreads them apart round the dome (±R — one copy each way), SCALE sizes both and X leans both. The pair keeps its own V, R, SCALE and X, apart from the one frame's: PIP off brings the picture back where it was, PIP on brings the pair back as you left it. The first time it opens at V 65, R ±46 and SCALE 40 — on a 45° dome low on the left and on the right, where people look. Under PIP two slots stand over the buttons on the right (on a phone, under them): L is the file OPEN plays — the sound and the BACK are L's; R is the right copy, the same as L until you give it a video or a picture of its own, which keeps its own shape at the same SCALE, plays and pauses with L and loops by itself; its × gives it L again. Like every file of yours, it never leaves the device. DOMECAST sends both. On a planetarium — where the panel says PLANETARIUM — PIP puts four: in front, on the right, behind and on the left, the same picture with the same V, X and SCALE, and R turns all four round the zenith. The four keep numbers of their own, apart from the pair's: the first time V 45, X 45 and SCALE 40 — above SCALE 43 neighbours touch. Their slots are four, L, F, R and B: F is the file OPEN plays, and L, R and B take files of their own — the same as F until then; R's own file is the one the pair shows on the right. PIP is off whenever the player opens: the button is there, the choice is yours. On a planetarium ×2 stands beside PIP: with PIP on it copies the four a row up — eight, the same four files, each one's twin to its right and a row higher, half a step round the dome, the way Cinema 4D's Cloner lays them in Honeycomb. They start with the lower row on the rim. V lifts all eight, its number the middle of the two rows, and GAP beside it draws the rows apart from that middle, the upper up and the lower down — with the lower row on the rim GAP takes the upper one up alone. SCALE sizes all eight. Every slider stops where the eight would leave the dome or touch — the lower row at the rim, the four up top round the zenith — so the bigger the pictures, the less room to lift and part them (at X 45 a 16:9 picture goes to SCALE 34 on the rim; at 25 it lifts 24°). X leans all eight and R turns them. ×2 keeps numbers of its own, the first time X 45 and SCALE 25, and it is off whenever the player opens. Under ×2 the die beside it lays the four files round the eight screens anew: ten layouts, one a press, its number on the button — 1 is the pairs, each one's twin to its right; 2 goes round 1-2-3-4 twice, each opposite itself; the others mix them in other orders, and in some a file stands next to its own copy in the same row. Which file takes which place is drawn by chance each time, so a layout comes back looking new; a double click brings back 1. Every file is always on two screens, and the sound stays F's.
BACKGROUND — with a flat file on the fulldome, the BACK / GROUND button in the rail puts a VR panorama (a 2:1 picture) under the frame instead of the blurred picture: a sharp environment, laid on the dome as a VR file is. While the button is lit the panel's block is BACKGROUND and its H, V and R turn the panorama; press it again and the FLAT block's X, V and R move the frame, the background staying. BACK is its brightness. On a flat still the arrows turn the panorama by 15°. The × on the button takes it away. The picture stays on your device, like every file you open.
